Treatment Strategies for Childhood Steroid-Resistant Nephrotic Syndrome
Hala Salah El-Din Talaat
Pediatrics Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.
Samar Sabry
Pediatrics Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.
Mohammed Farouk Mohammed *
Pediatrics Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.
Ashraf Ayad
Ministry of Health and Population, Egypt.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Background: Nephrotic syndrome (NS) is a common childhood kidney disease caused by impaired glomerular function, characterized by protein leakage from the blood to the urine through the glomeruli, resulting in proteinuria, hypoalbuminemia, hypercholesterolemia and generalized edema. NS is descriptively classified upon the patients’ response to steroid treatment as steroid-sensitive NS (SSNS) or steroid-resistant NS (SRNS).
Aim: describe and compare different management strategies for SRNS.
Methods: This retrospective study included 53 SRNS who were attending the Nephrology Outpatient Clinic, Children's Hospital, and Cairo University for follow-up.
Results: out of 53 SRNS patients, 29 (54.72%) patients showed complete response to immunosuppressive therapy, while 14 (25.42%) showed partial response and the remaining 10 (18.87%) showed no response.
Conclusion: Partial response to steroids or to first line of immunosuppressive therapy predicts better response to further immunosuppressives in SRNS patient. Cyclophosphamide is a preferable line in MCNS as it gives good results (50% complete response) with the advantage of lower cost and shorter duration of use. In patients with non-minimal change lesions or those who failed to respond to cyclophosphamide, cyclosporine is used.
Keywords: Nephrotic syndrome, steroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome, steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome, children.